Scream Ecstasy
by Syn2
Summary: "My salvation has come and gone and I will not be redeemed." Wes/Faith, Wes/Lilah freakiness.


Title: Scream Ecstasy  
Author: Syn  
E-mail: veruca_werewolf@hotmail.com  
Rating: R  
Content: Faith/Wesley Darkfic  
Disclaimer: Yeah, like Joss is this sadistic. Then again...  
Archive: Take it.  
Summary: "My salvation has come and gone and I will not be redeemed."  
A/N: I'm evil! Ask me how! I was going to write a "Faith saves Wesley from Lilah" story, but well...it didn't happen that way.   
Feedback: It's such a small thing, if you please.  
  
*********  
  
She favored red.   
  
Looking at her, I can see why. It goes so well with her complexion, the olive skin paled by time spent locked in a tiny cell. I had noticed other girls her age, weathered prematurely by the sun and tanning beds. Coming from a country of rain and fog, my tastes run to paler hues of skin rather than the golden California look.   
  
Perhaps this is why she was so tempting. My gaze rakes over her face as she lays there, peacefully unaware of the world around her. Her hands are spread out over the sheets, clutching like she's been thrown into a nightmare.   
  
But I know she hasn't.   
  
I'm the one living in a nightmare of my own making. Staring at her with wide eyes, I know that I'm not the man I claimed to be. If I could do this to her, then....  
  
(It starts with a kiss and the kiss melts into more of them until I'm lost in the dark brown of her eyes, drowning in pools of obsidian and thrusting wildly into her leather-clad hips. She moves like quicksilver, running into every hollow that is *me* and forcing me to play my hand and regain control...)  
  
I collapse into the chair at my desk, my head in my hands. I've come to understand that silence is supposed to be a metaphor at times like these. I'm supposed to feel utterly alone right now, but I don't. I can hear the honking of horns and sirens wailing off in the distance. A car alarm is going off and there's a cat in the alley, rattling through a trashcan. Silence as a metaphor seems to have abandoned me and I desperately wish it hadn't.   
  
I am all to aware of the thinness of my bedroom walls. It's all just a bit of plaster and brick, really. I have to wonder, if it were made of steel, would I feel any safer? Safe from the truth of my crimes?   
  
Oh God...what have I done?  
  
Looking down at my hands, I notice they're smudged with red.   
  
(My hands scrape desperately over her cheekbones, thumbs sliding over the ripe swell of her lips. The crimson comes off in bloody streaks and I see her mouth part, maybe a moan escaping, maybe a scream, maybe my name....)  
  
A chill comes over me as the night washes down my spine, circling up through the knotted tissue at my back. Whenever I move, I feel bruises in the shape of her hands twinge. She left them all over me, like a handwritten note claiming parts of my body as her own.   
  
(And this is mine, and this is mine and this and don't forget this...)  
  
It's okay though. Where she claimed me, I claimed her tenfold. I can see the marks splashed out across her naked body, the palest flesh of her breasts liberally peppered with lip imprints and the wet trail of my tongue. If I concentrate really hard, I can still taste her.   
  
My tongue swells with the memory of sweat and screaming. Dear God for another taste...but I can't. Not anymore. Not ever again.   
  
Sitting here, semi-naked and staring at a young woman I don't really know--but I know her more intimately than I've ever known another human being--I feel old before my time. Truth is, I don't feel like myself. I feel different.   
  
It's no wonder, really. You're never the same after...they always say that's the case. I wasn't sure I believed in the tales until now. Now, oh now I know the truth. Now I know the weight that settles onto your shoulders as you stare across the room at a body nestled almost serenely in your bed with the accusation of "You did this." ringing in your ears.  
  
(She screams her ecstasy as we shake together like rattlesnakes, her head goes back and that red smudged mouth fights to connect with mine, but I have another surprise and when it comes she's not ready, not ready at all...)  
  
I stand and stare at the unfashionably pale face thrown against my pillow with reckless abandon, the wild tumble of her dark curls tangled by my fingers. Her eyes are heavily shadowed, both by makeup and the darkness of night. I marvel at the ease of it all. Just a twist and a scream and it was done.   
  
But these things are never as simple as they appear to be. I know that. The ax will fall soon, but right now I have to endure this silence-that-isn't.   
  
Climbing back into the bed, I curl around her still form, attempting to warm her with my own heat. I know it won't help, but it's worth a try, a meager offering for my earlier deeds. Her head falls limply onto my shoulder and I touch my hand to her mouth, tracing the smudges with a trembling fingertip.   
  
(she thrashes underneath me and I start to cry and scream and I try to take it back, but it's too late. I've done what I said I would and I've lost everything that mattered and that's not much. I'm worth shit now and she knows it, she's my offering, my attempted salvation and my ruination...)  
  
Morning comes and with it, the one person I don't want to see. She smiles at me with an air of superiority as she surveys the rumpled sheets and the red on my hands. There's an awed touch to her features as she moves around the room, looking at things with new eyes. And I can see something in her hands and I know what it is.  
  
When Lilah hands me the pen, I sign my soul away. And then I turn to watch Wolfram & Hart clean up the bed; stripping it of everything I did and will do. They come and go as quiet as a mouse, wrapping her up in sheets as pale as her face.   
  
The red is already showing at her stomach. She favored the red so. I collapse onto the floor a broken man. Broken and tainted. I can't go back and I've paid my admission to the show. I'm sitting inside the devil's mouth and it's the only place for a man like me.   
  
My salvation has come and gone and I will not be redeemed.  
  
(The knife drops out of my nerveless fingers and there's blood everywhere. She's so damned still and I can't believe, won't believe that's all it took. I sit back and stare at my red smudged hands, my soul seeping out like her life. I've done what Lilah asked of me and I've proven myself. Staring into her shadowed eyes, I tremble and collapse, screaming her name...)  
  
I will not be redeemed.  
  
(end)  
  
*********** 


End file.
